Queen Mary Sails Back to the 1930s

The 10th annual Art Deco Weekend fancies up Long Beach's Big Boat.

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The Art Deco Weekend at the Queen Mary dons its suits and frocks from Thursday, Aug. 28 through Monday, Sept. 1.

Many of us have likely received a birthday card listing the prices of milk and cars from the year we were born, and the fashions, and the popular songs, and such.

It's quaint, all righty, but the card does not transport us back to that time. The Queen Mary gets a sort of card each year, in the form of the Labor Day Weekend Art Deco celebration that zips it right back to the early 1930s, when it was first constructed on the River Clyde in Scotland.

Nope, the card isn't paper, nor is there an envelope; rather fans of the era's look, and of vintage architecture, board the boat in period wear, looking to frolic, hobnob, and serve as living, breathing reminders of the Queen Mary's 1930s start.

Is Art Deco Weekend all about stroking walls and sighing over in-laid details and considering the sunburst and chevron detailing of the ship? Yes, there's a lot of that, because architecture, and the marvel that was and is Art Deco, is the main player.

But Prohibition tastings -- think cocktails while you're being and looking your swellest -- and a Sunday tea dance and a brunch and vintage bazaar round out the popular and in-depth design tours. Call it a pretty immersive trip into a decade 80 years gone by.

Not just immersive, but impish, too: The Friday night "lounge wear" party -- think fancy, shiny pajamas and those slipper-type mules with the feathers -- includes tabletop horse-racing and the admiring of people in their after-hours wear. Are you going to look as though you stepped straight out of a screwball comedy romance? You better.

Tickets for events start at fifteen dollars, but there are fuller options, and stay-over packages, too for the Aug. 28 through Sept. 1 doings. By the by, this is year 10 for the robust gathering, so bet you'll hear "decade" tossed about a lot (as it should be -- ten years of any celebration is brag-worthy).